from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog by Rex

In my last blog post I pointed out that it seemed that monographs seem to be getting shorter and shorter. I am sure that one reason for this is publication pressure although the fact that short books are easier to read and write has something to do with it as well. Some of the recent ethnographies I?ve read, like The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media (best title ever btw) or Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Labs and Second Life are so short that they seem more long long essays than short books.

from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog by Rex

While many readers know that Open Access Week was last week, fewer will know that in Hawai?i we traditionally celebrate Open Access Week a week later than the mainland US. This means that we are in the middle of our celebrations of Open Access Week here in Honolulu. Since the time is right I?m happy to announce the re-launch of the Mana?o repository.

Editors Note: This blog post was written by Flordeliz T. Bugarin, Eleanor King, Mark Mack and Arvilla Payne-Jackson of Howard University. It is an expanded version of their article appearing in the November 2010 Anthropology News (51:8[28]).

On September 23, 2010, the President of Howard University, Dr. Sidney A. Ribeau announced his recommendations for academic renewal. In regards to the Anthropology Program in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, he stated in an email sent to all departments:

Rather than start off by speaking directly about my contribution (though that is something I?ll touch on here before I?m done), I?d like to start by addressing the risks and rewards of the idea animating this discussion in the first place. Whether this issue of South Atlantic Quarterly succeeds or fails, it will do so on the basis of its core gambit: that the post-Marxist explosion in Pauline literature, by authors such as Badiou and ?i?ek, and the post-cold war explosion in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity have, if not some kind of commensurability, then at least enough intelligibly contrasting elements to serve as the crux of a discussion. This is already a dicey proposition, given the gulf between the abstract rigors of philosophy and the populist accessibility of most modes of contemporary religiosity. Perhaps the biggest challenge is not locating the identity and difference between these two conceptual objects, however, but instead agreeing preliminarily that they both have referents of some sort?that we can speak intelligibly of either a ?Pauline Turn? or ?Global Christianity? in the first place. We must start out then, it seems, with the question of categories, at least as a preliminary grid to be abandoned later.

Did I forget to mention that I published a biography of Walt Disney this summer? Here is the description of it from Greenwood Press which published this series of biographies for young adults:

Description:Walt Disney has been dissected, criticized, and lauded in numerous biographies, most of which try to penetrate the psychology of the man and his motives. Walt Disney: A Biography takes a cultural approach, looking at Disney as both a product of his culture and a cultural innovator who influenced entertainment, education, leisure, and even history.

from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog by Rex

I have noticed two trends in anthropological publishing: First, several of our major journals have shortened the maximum length of submissions to below the 10,000 word mark. Second, new ethnographies seem to be getting shorter and short, and several I?ve read are less than 200 words of body text. I?m sure anthropology is just going along with larger trends in making these changes, but I think it also reflects changing answers to the question: how long is an anthropological thought?

The serendipity of this paper appearing just now is incredible. Sardinians emerge as belonging over 96.2% in a “Southern European” genetic component revealed by ADMIXTURE analysis, while peninsular Italians typically also possess to a great extent the West Asian, Northern European, and Southwest Asian components.